That sounded ominous, but I only said, “Barnes Jewish Hospital is pretty close to this place. It’s southeast of Forest Park, off Kingshighway. I think St. Mary’s is around here somewhere, too, depending on how much blood you need to steal.”
“Good to know,” he said, and paused as though weighing his next words. “I believe it would be best if you stayed here with Nigellus.”
I thought about that for a moment. “Is he guarding me, or am I guarding him so he doesn’t grab Guthrie and disappear somewhere?”
Rans looked troubled. “Mostly the former. It will be much simpler for Nigellus to let someone else play baby vampire nurse who has experience in the role. And I doubt he’d scarper and leave you unprotected, anyway. Not with Myrial and Caspian both on the rampage.”
“Okay,” I said. “Go on, then. Guthrie needs blood, so you’d better get moving.”
He searched my eyes. “Are you all right, Zorah?”
I laughed, the sound like a rusty hinge. “All right? Nope, sorry—not even close. But I’m guessing the situation won’t improve if I end up as the only human-ish blood source trapped in a penthouse suite with a ravenous, newly fledged vampire.”
“Probably not,” he agreed. His hand cupped my cheek, tilting my head until he could brush is lips to mine. “I’ll be as quick as I can.”
I nodded, and he rose in a lithe movement, dissolving into a swirl of mist that disappeared into the night. I stayed where I was for a few minutes longer, but the evening had already cooled enough to raise gooseflesh across my arms and legs. Reluctantly, I went inside, stopping in the guest bathroom to wash off any blood spatters I might have missed and splash lukewarm water on my face.
I both did and didn’t want to face Nigellus. The idea of playing dumb regarding everything we’d learned about him sounded unutterably exhausting... but I had several questions that he might be able to answer. Or not answer, if my previous track record when it came to prying information out of him was any indication.
The demon was seated in a chair in the corner of Guthrie’s bedroom. He looked up as I came in. I glanced at the newly turned vampire on the bed. Either Rans or Nigellus had cleaned him up a bit, but Guthrie still looked like a dead man—his features slack and his chest unmoving.
“Zorah,” Nigellus acknowledged. “I trust you are as well as can be expected after the day’s events?”
I shrugged. “Still technically in one piece, at least. These days, I consider that a win.” I jerked my chin toward the bed. “Tell me something. Did you know Myrial was the demon who’d bound Guthrie all those years ago?”
“I did, yes,” he replied, surprising me with his lack of hesitation.
I shot him a sideways glance. “Awesome. Any other useful little tidbits you’d care to share now that it’s apparent Myrial has her sights set on you, rather than just on Rans and me?”
The demon’s brow furrowed, though his attention remained fixed on Guthrie’s unmoving body. “Indeed there are, since you ask. Now that Mr. Leonides is no longer human, sharing information related to his past to another non-human such as yourself arguably no longer constitutes interference within the human realm.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “That’s... pretty convoluted, but I guess I’ll take it. Go on, then—hit me.”
“I would lay excellent odds that he is also the human donor Myrial used to obtain the genetic material necessary to impregnate your grandmother.”
I mentally replayed that a couple of times to make sure I’d heard right. Apparently, I had.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I said flatly. Then, something occurred to me. “Hang on. Guthrie hates demons. No fucking way would he fall into bed with the same demon who bound him.”
Nigellus lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “It’s likely he simply did not recognize Myrial in female form. If my reckoning of the dates is correct, it would have happened a couple of decades after he was bound, more or less. Because of the complications imposed by the Fae treaty, it’s unlikely Myrial had much face-to-face contact with Mr. Leonides after the deal was first struck, so even her male form would not have been overly familiar to him.”
“Oh. My. God. That conniving bitch,” I murmured.
It took a special kind of asshattery to promise a guy that you were going to save his wife from cancer, only to let her get run over by a car a few months afterward. To then come back twenty years later and have sex with the same man, just so you could steal his genetic material...
“I really want to say something about there being a special place in Hell for people like Myrial,” I said. “But that’s probably in bad taste.”
“Not to worry. Demons generally appreciate gallows humor,” Nigellus assured me. “I believe it’s listed somewhere in the fine print of the contract.”
My eyes fell on Guthrie again. Good lord. It was very likely that I was looking at my biological grandfather. And now he was a vampire... one who was still bound to a demon.
“What about Myrial?” I asked suddenly. “Why did she let us get away with saving him? Am I right in thinking that by dragging him back from death, Rans pulled Guthrie’s animus away from Myrial as she was trying to suck it into herself? If so, why would she not just try to reap him again five minutes later? Guthrie isn’t human anymore, but he’s not properly immortal, either. He can still die.”
“Indeed he can,” Nigellus agreed. “As I stated to Ransley, the decision was a calculated risk. Withholding Myrial’s prize after she expended the energy necessary to reap Mr. Leonides’ soul will have further weakened her, but I can only imagine she’s more interested right now in the method we employed to thwart her than in immediately making another attempt.”
I could see that, I supposed. After all,
